Sermon Archive
Homily for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity, 2021
Homily for Trinity 22, 2021
Christ the King Anglican
Fr. Tony Melton
“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Our theme this morning is Forgiveness, not only of our enemies, but also of those for whom we expect a great deal—our family, our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a needful topic for several reasons. First, forgiveness is actually quite rare, especially in today’s world. When someone steps out of line, the first inclination in our culture is to cancel them, sue them, or take revenge. How many movies will be released each Fall that glorify violence towards others out of hate? Stories of mercy are tough to find. They no longer sell. We have been trained to require blood.
Our primary text this morning is from Matthew 18, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. We will see that the godliness of the Lord’s household is founded upon God’s forgiveness of us, supported by our unconditional forgiveness of others, and established by true love.
If you would, please turn to page 16 in your booklet. You’ll notice at the bottom of the page that we ask God in the Collect that He would keep us, His household, in continual godliness. Godliness. What is godliness? What images does it conjure up for you? To many, the word often has negative overtones, something puritanical. Yet, the word simply means to be like God. What is God like? One of the primary characteristics of God is His mercy. Our God is a forgiving God. Among His many attributes, this is certainly the most shocking. Both pagans and modern secularists would hardly expect that the God of the whole Universe would be so merciful, so forgiving. To be godly is to be merciful. Listen to this quote by St. Gregory of Nyssa.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' Now I know that in many passages of the Divine Scripture holy men call the Divine Power merciful; as does David in the Psalms, Jonas in his prophecy, and the great Moses frequently in the Law. If, therefore, the term 'merciful' is suited to God, what else does the Word invite you to become but God, since you ought to model yourself on the property of the Godhead? For if the Divinely inspired Scripture calls God merciful, and if the Divinity is truly blessed, then it should be clear how the following is to be understood. It means that if a man is merciful, he is deemed worthy of the Divine Blessedness, because he has attained to that which characterized the Divine Nature.”
We ask God to keep us, His household, in continual godliness, and this means especially on this 22nd Sunday after Trinity, that we desire to be a merciful, forgiving family. We get this theme particularly from our Gospel this morning, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The Parable shows a man who is forgiven, in modern valuation, millions and millions of dollars, yet he shows no mercy to his fellow-servant who owes him a couple hundred bucks. The Lord is repulsed by him. The Lord finds un-forgiveness repulsive. The inference of the text is that the man should have been merciful because God had forgiven him all.
Our forgiveness of Others is grounded in God’s forgiveness of us! The culture of the household of God is determined most of all by the fact that each and every one of us has been forgiven an unimaginable debt. This is what Bonhoeffer claims as the basis for Christian community in his book, Life Together. This is why we vest the way we do. We are sinners (black cassock), saved by Grace (white surplice)!
How fitting that this 22nd Sunday after Trinity, where we think upon Forgiveness, should fall on the day that we remember the Reformation. I say remember rather than celebrate because while it needed to happen, and God worked mightily through it, it is always tragic to have the family of God ripped apart. Schism is a terrible, though sometimes necessary thing. But one of the things that was so gloriously reclaimed in the Reformation is the clear and total forgiveness of sins that is ours in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are no, “Yeah, but’s”, or “only if’s”. If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Your sins will be forgiven you! The Reformation reclaimed an accurate view of two things: how great is our debt to God, and how total is His remission of that debt. God’s forgiveness of our sins is the basis of culture in the household of God. How can the Church have a culture of mercy if we are unclear about God’s forgiveness of us?
We have seen that we are to be godly by living out God’s mercy. We have seen that the culture of mercy in God’s house is rooted in His mercy towards us. Now we get to the our part. Forgiving one another. Peter asks, “How often should I forgive my brother? Seven times?” Jesus responds, “Seventy times seven”, which is to say, infinitely, unconditionally, totally, perfectly.
Children, are you a Christian? When someone wrongs you, whether that be a brother, or sister, a friend, or parent…Christians forgive always. Adults, if there is one thing that sets us apart as the household of God, it is that we forgive one another. Have you ever thought about how it would feel if you actually had to forgive someone for the 500th time? 500…? "They aren’t changing!! They keep on making the same mistake!!” We’d say that a person like that was pathological. Dangerous even! Seventy times seven.
It is hard to overemphasize how radical is the commandment of forgiveness. We often move off topic so quickly to draw lines of distinction about forgiveness and reconciliation. Those questions aren’t bad, but they often distract us to how total, painful, vulnerable, and unlimited is the command to forgive.
It is also easy to forget the seriousness of the command. We pray everyday, “Forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Meaning, we ask God to use the same measure towards us that we use towards others. Jesus mentions this several times in the Gospels, most clearly in the Gospel for this morning. The servant who grabbed his friend by the neck and said, “Pay me what you owe me!”, did he not have the decree of his forgiveness in his other hand? And because of His unforgiveness, that decree was taken away, and he was cast into utter darkness. “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” “For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”
We’ve just completed our membership documents as a mission, including our Letter of Transfer. In this letter, there is a section where each person, in order to join here, must testify to the following, “I have charity and good-will toward my previous parish. I have confessed my faults and failures to those whom I have wronged, asked for forgiveness, and forgiven all that have trespassed against me. I’ve shown due respect and obedience to my pastors, and pursued peace and/or reconciliation with any and all who have ought against me.”
I know for many of you, this will be really hard. We’ve lost people because of this commitment. I’d like to make you aware of a danger here in how we forgive. It is easy to imagine that we have forgiven someone if we simply cauterize our feelings toward them. We simply choose not to care about them or the hurt that they’ve caused us. While this might be considered a step in the right direction, it is still far from the godliness that we ask for today. Numbness is not the same as forgiveness. The bar for biblical forgiveness is not the absence of wrath, but the presence of love.
This is why we have the Epistle for this Sunday. It is St. Paul’s gushy intro to the Philippians. “I THANK my God upon every remembrance of you…being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: 7 even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart…For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment…” It is amazing how much love Paul had for these people! The household of God is not established by the absence of resentment, but by the warmth of love. “I have you in my heart.”
Think of someone who has wronged you. Do you desire God’s best for them? Can you join Paul in praying that they might be “filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God”? If not, then God still has healing for your heart. My guess is that every single one of us need this healing. To love our enemies, to love those who have trespassed against us, to love those who have hurt us again and again, that is godliness, and there is nothing that God loves to see in His children than Mercy.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that you are forgiven?… Will you be a people of Mercy?… Will you forgive one another?… Will you forgive your previous church?… Will you forgive your parents and family?… Will you forgive your enemies?… Will you strive to love all these people, to carry them in your heart to the Mercy Seat of God?
Lord, we ask you to fashion in us your heart that we might love all people. Let the water and blood which came from your side wash over the wounds of our heart and make it whole, that we might be able to carry our enemies there, even as we ascend to your heavenly banquet. Amen.
Sermon for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, 2021
Trinity XXI
My high school driver’s education teacher was Mr. Hamm. The practice route we took near the school involved going up a very steep hill which had a blind curve near the top. Cars coming the opposite way down the hill and going too fast would sometimes drift over the double yellow line exactly at this blind curve. As we would drive up the hill, Mr. Hamm would tell us to inch over to edge of the road. When we asked him why, he pointed to the blind cure said, “Because that’s where the danger will come from.”
From our Collect three Sundays ago, we learned there are three dangers to our souls: the world, the flesh, and the devil.[1] All temptations to sin can be traced to one of these, or combination of them. In last week’s Homily, Fr. Tony mentioned some dangers that come from the world. During the penitential seasons, we focus on the dangers from the flesh. In today’s Epistle, Ephesians six, verses 10-20, the Apostle Paul focuses on the third danger – the devil.
Here is a three-point outline of the passage: Verse 10 is an exhortation: “Be strong in the Lord.” The second part of verse 11 gives us the reason for the exhortation: “To stand against the wiles of the devil.” Third, verses 14-18 tell us how we are do this: “Put on the whole armor of God.” Exhortation, reason, and means.
First, the exhortation in verse 10: “My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” The qualifier, “in the Lord,” is important. We should not have confidence in our own strength, rather we are to be strong “in the Lord.” We are to use only those resources that He gives to us. How are we to do this?
Verse 11 begins “Put on the armour of God.” The first thing we should note is that being strong in the Lord is not about feeling strong, or merely thinking about spiritual armor. We are called to act – “put on.” Notice the other verbs Paul uses in this passage: “Be strong, take, stand.” The imperative mood conveys explicit directions and commands. Further, with the imperative, “You” is always the implied subject. You are to be strong in the Lord. You are to put on. You are to stand. If you’re listening or reading carefully, you’ll notice I omitted one word – “whole” – the whole armor of God. We don’t get to pick and choose how we will arm ourselves. We must use all the graces He provides. No soldier would want to go into battle only partially armed. Here we would expect Paul to tell us what this armor is, but as he sometimes does, he interrupts himself, to tell us why we need God’s armor.
The second half of verse 11: “That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” The “wiles of the devil” are his schemes, trickery, and deceptions. We will say more about this later when we come to an application. Paul’s language about the threats from the devil is even stronger in the next verse. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Paul uses no less than four different words or phrases to describe the range of demonic forces, spread throughout the cosmos, which have one purpose – to attack and destroy Christians. Our primary spiritual battle is not against earthly powers (“flesh and blood”), but against demonic forces which are terrible and beyond our comprehension.
So we are relieved when Paul now tells us how we can prepare for these dangers. Verse 13: “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day…” You’ll notice that Paul repeats “whole armor” from verse 11. If we arm ourselves as we should, we will be able to “withstand” – that is, to oppose or stand against. As the late John R. W. Stott, Anglican priest and author, noted, Christ has defeated the devil, but he has not yet conceded defeat.[2] We are standing on ground that Christ has won for us, and our mission is not to attack, but to stand. We are soldiers “holding the line” in the face of temptations.
The third part of the passage is verses 14-18, where Paul uses an extended metaphor to describe the armor. Roman soldiers were a familiar site to the Christians in ancient Ephesus. Paul tells them that when they see a Roman soldier, they can feel resentment over an occupying army, or they can turn that sight into a moment of prayerful recollection on God’s spiritual armor for them. We see that the armor covers us literally head to toe, thus conveying the completeness of God’s protection. First, we are to arm ourselves with the belt of truth. Jesus called the devil “the father of lies.”[3] His subtle attacks may include suggestions that what is false is true, and what is true, is false. As Christians we are committed to following Him who is the “way, the truth, and the life.”[4] Second, the “breastplate of righteousness” is not limited only to righteousness. In I Thessalonians 5:8, Paul instructs us to “put on the breastplate of faith and love.” So all the virtues are needed in order to be “strong in the Lord.” In verse 15, we see that our feet are to wear the gospel of peace. It is only the gospel which brings peace and reconciliation – between us and God, and between ourselves and others. We find the shield of faith in verse 16. This piece of armor is needed to extinguish the fiery darts of the wicked. “Wicked” is understood as the “wicked one.” This reminds us of the larger context of the passage. Our armor is to “stand against the wiles of the devil.” “Fiery darts” is a metaphor for fierce temptation. Spiritual warfare demands constant alertness to temptation. In verse 17 we find the helmet of salvation. This reference, along with the breastplate of righteousness earlier lets us know that Paul is drawing from the prophet Isaiah’s description of the future Messiah’s armor: “He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head.”[5] We arm ourselves as the Captain of our salvation did.[6] The sixth piece of armor is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” This is the only offensive weapon we are given. When our Lord was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, he repelled Satan all three times with “It is written…” Being able to say, “The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver,” is how God provides a way of escape from temptation.[7] Verse 18 contains the seventh and final piece of armor – prayer. Paul says more about prayer than any of the previous six. Notice first that the previous six pieces of armor are all separated with the word “and.” But Paul does not end this list with “and prayer.” This is because prayer must infuse all the armor. For Paul, prayer is the primary means of spiritual warfare because prayer is how we put on the rest of the armor. Notice, too, Paul tells when to pray (“always”), how to pray (“with all perseverance and supplication in the Spirit”), and finally, for whom to pray (“for all the saints”).
We miss the main point of this passage if we “spiritualize” this metaphor, remaining content with merely thinking about the armor. “Put on!” “Take up!” We have not really put on the “breastplate of righteousness” if we are not actively developing the Christian virtues. We have not put on the “gospel of peace” if we maintain a low simmering anger and resentment against others.
In summary, this passage is an apostolic warning about “the wiles of the devil.” We are exhorted to be strong in the Lord by putting on the “whole armor of God” for spiritual warfare.
Let’s consider one area of application – the so-called “culture wars.” There are two errors to avoid. First, we should not confuse spiritual warfare with the “culture wars.” You’ll hear some Christians use same language for both, and with the same amount of zeal. They are not the same thing, and they are not morally equivalent. Our children should not overhear us talk more about masks, vaccines, January 6, or critical race theory than how to protect ourselves and them from the spiritual dangers we face every day. I Peter 5:18: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” No amount of success in the culture wars will save us from that. Second, some Christians do not engage the culture with Christlikeness. But putting on the whole armor of God corrects this. If we put on the belt of truth, we won’t misrepresent our opponents’ positions. If we put on the gospel of peace, we will not justify violence. If we put on the breastplate of righteousness, we will always speak and act in charity. And if we are always prayerful, winning them to Christ will always be more important than winning an argument.
Why is it so important to avoid these errors? Because the devil has just one aim: to separate your soul from God. And he would be pleased for us to win every battle in the culture wars if he could induce us to sin just one time in doing so. One of his vilest deceptions would be for us to heartily sing “For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe” in here but then scarcely give him another thought out there.[8]
We will close with these words by the fourth century Church Father, St. John Chrysostom. He earned the name “golden-mouthed” for his eloquence. But sometimes bitter words are needed to awaken us to where the danger is. “For this enemy is at war with us, not simply, nor openly, but by wiles...If then it is a warfare, if such are the forces arrayed against us…if they are the spiritual hosts of wickedness, how, tell me, can you live in self-indulgence?...How if we are unarmed, shall we be able to overcome? These words let every one repeat to himself every day…Let him hearken to the blessed Paul…Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers.”[9]
[1] The Book of Common Prayer (1928), pg. 214.
[2] John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (1986), pg. 235.
[3] Jn. 8:44b.
[4] Jn. 14:6.
[5] Is. 59:17b, RSV.
[6] Heb. 2:10.
[7] Ps. 119:72; I Cor. 10:13.
[8] Hymn 551, The 1940 Hymnal.
[9] St. John Chrysostom, Homily 22 on Ephesians. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230122.htm, accessed October 14, 2021.
Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Trinity
Homily for Trinity 20, 2021
Fr. Tony Melton @ CTK
“Eyes peeled, mind clear, ears open, and stick together”
In nearly every place we’ve lived, we’ve always driven through an area where there are many people walking aimlessly and precariously along the street. Southeast Dallas where we lived for 5 years had far more than Marietta. I remember a man walking straight into traffic, dancing to the music in his headphones, staggering from whatever was coursing through his system, all by his lonesome at 1 o’clock in the morning. Thankfully I saw him coming, and the few cars coming behind me swerved to miss him, too. I hope he got home safely.
Our text today is from our Epistle—Ephesians 5:15. “Walk circumspectly, for the days are evil.” This man was not walking circumspectly and therefore he did not know the danger that he was in. We are living in evil days, yet there are so many intoxicants of the soul that we don’t often recognize the dangers. So many are like that man. We walk into oncoming traffic because we intoxicate our minds with dopamine through excess pleasure, cortisol and adrenaline through excess stress. And after we get pummeled by temptation, or we fall into a pit sin, or crisis hits us, we are even more disoriented. We become confused, lazy, and sad. But, fellow pilgrims, we have the Spirit of Jesus living inside of us. Our Savior walked this same earth, and he bids us through his Apostle Paul to “Walk circumspectly, for the days are evil.”
This morning, I’ll touch briefly on our Collect for this week and the consistent theme the Church has had on Trinity 20 for nearly 1400 years. Then, we will walk circumspectly through our Epistle reading from Ephesians 5. At the end, I’ll briefly relate what St. Paul says to the Rule of Life that we speak about here at CTK.
In your booklet, please open to page 9. At the top is the Collect for the 20th Sunday after Trinity. In it we ask God to “keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things which thou commandest.” This Collect was composed for the Sarum Missal in 1078, but it is a variation of an earlier collect found in the Gregorian Sacramentary, which was composed in the early 600’s. That Collect reads, “Lord, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to avoid the infections of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God…” In the later version you have “keep us from all things that may hurt us” and in the earlier “keep us from infections of the devil”. The Sarum Collect reads that we would be ready in body and soul to cheerfully accomplish” God’s commands. The Gregorian Collect asks that we would have pure hearts and minds in order to follow God. For 1400 years, the Church has contemplated this theme on this week: the avoidance hurtful things and the readiness of body and soul to do God’s Work cheerfully.
Let us see why. As is often the case, the Collect is trying to take the Epistle and turn it into Prayer. And what do we see in Ephesians 5:15? Please either turn there in your Bibles, or open to page 9 in your booklet. In our Epistle, Paul lays out how to navigate the evil times in which we live, and I see in this passage 4 principles which relate to the man walking down the street at night.
In verses 15-16, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our eyes peeled. Keep our eyes peeled. He says, “See then that ye walk circumspectly.” That word in the English means literally to look (specto) around (circum). Circumspectly. Don’t be naive, or as Paul puts it, “not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Followers of Jesus don’t lie to themselves about the times in which they live. The general approach of the Church, especially in pre or post Christian societies is to live out the counter-culture of the Gospel. We are to assume the presence of danger in the world, infections of the soul as the old Collect says. The days are evil, so we must keep our eyes peeled and walk circumspectly.
In verses 17-18, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our mind clear. So what are they? Eyes…”peeled”. Mind…”clear”. “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” This is a big one. There is so much to cloud our heads right now. Cell phone companies advertise that you can be limitless. But the Cloud of data brings with it a cloudiness of mind. With the great variety of options, we miss the mona, the One, to which our minds must fix. Our foods are chemically engineered to kick our body into a pleasure state, and this too clouds the mind. And we wonder why we do not understand the will of God. The people of God have lost their ascetic. Of course, this is nothing to say of what we call “intoxicants”, to which St. Paul refers to explicitly. If we are to see the oncoming traffic, we must keep our minds clear and our eyes open.
In verse 19, St. Paul exhorts us to keep our ears open. Keep our ears…open. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Some of my students used to think that I was a curmudgeon when it came to music. While it is true that much of modern music is simply awful, many of them were surprised that my concerns were less about the type of music as it was about the constancy of music. In other words, the most significant problem with Spotify is not that it makes the soul spotty through content, it is that constant noise tunes out the melody of the heart to the Lord that Paul talks about in Ephesians 5.
Many of you are still adjusting to chanting in the Liturgy. I know that it is difficult. Not only are we not accustomed to chanting, but the Merbecke setting is admittedly not the most majestic or exuberant. It is more penitential in tone. We began with it because it is relatively easy. What I’ve found encouraging is that even those who have struggled to learn it or enjoy it testify that when it is quiet at their home, or as they go about their day, the tunes of the Liturgy settle into their mind. The Sanctus, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts…” The Gloria, “we praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee…” Some have heard their children humming or singing the Mass while lying in bed. Listen again to what Paul is saying, and think about how this would actually happen in a Christian life. When do we speak to one another in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs? He is speaking here of the Liturgy. Just as we are sent out, Missum, Mass, carrying in us the Body of Christ, so we are take these melodies and carry them in our hearts. To have our ears open and our hearts singing is exactly what we need if we are to walk circumspectly and in communion with Jesus. How can we do this if we fill our minds with distractions, our bodies with intoxicants, and our ears with noise?
Our friend on the street had his eyes down, his mind clouded, and his ears covered and filled. But he was also all alone. There was no one to help him out of danger. In verses 20-21, St. Paul exhorts us to stick together. Let’s go through them. Eyes…PEELED. Mind…CLEAR. Ears…OPEN. Stick…TOGETHER. “giving thanks always for all things unto God, even the Father, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” As we’ve mentioned before, “giving thanks” is the Greek word for Eucharist, and it almost always has some reference to the central Liturgy of the Church. We give thanks within the Eucharistic community. And it is here that we follow St. Paul’s final command in this Epistle reading: “submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Jesus says that we are like sheep. We easily lose our way and wander into dangerous lands. How much truer is this of us, who are still sheep but live in an age with so many intoxicants of the soul? A mark of a truly wise man or woman is the ability to say, “I might be wrong. I might be disoriented. My mind might be cloudy. Maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe I’m venturing into traffic unknowingly.” The possibility of our own error, or even our own insanity. We will not make it on our own. You can’t walk “circumspectly” on your own. You can only walk semi-circumspectly. You need someone to watch your six, and to catch you when you lose your way.
To condense St. Paul’s words down even further and in order to apply them within the context of this community, I’ll say that to “walk circumspectly…wisely in these evil days” we must have an adequate ascesis and a Eucharistic Community. An adequate ascesis corresponds to keeping our eyes open and mind clear. If we are survive our pilgrimage, we must not be drunk in any sense of the word. Our minds must be clear and that takes discipline, or ascesis. But we also need a Eucharistic community, which we have right here and right now. And this corresponds to keeping our ears open and sticking together. It is here that we open our ears and fill our hearts with the music of the Church. Let the hymnody of God’s people and the sung words of Scripture be your soundtrack. And these people, for a few seconds look around around at the people that God has given you, these are the people that will keep you in the right way. They will watch your back, and keep you from falling into a pit. You are to “submit yourself to one another in the fear of the Lord.”
My brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ has given us so much. He has opened our eyes and has given us his mind through the Spirit of Wisdom. Jesus has given us one another. It is He who leads the singing where together to make melody to God. We speak God’s word to each other. We give thanks together. We submit one to another. And in all of this, Jesus is at the center, constantly giving grace that we may walk in the paths of life, blazed by the fire of his love. A highway through the desert. A pilgrimage taken together. Let us walk circumspectly, making melody in our hearts to the Lord.